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Christian Evangelist David Barton: 'We Had to Destroy Indian Tribes'

ICTMN Staff

3/22/13

Thursday’s edition of WallBuilders Live, a religiously slanted history podcast founded by David Barton, addressed just-war theory, which Barton defines as “what you have to do to secure justice and the protection of life and liberties for your citizens.”

One of the wars he used to demonstrate his point was King Philip’s War, which he says started because missionaries were trying to get Indian tribes to stop using torture.

“The Indian leaders said ‘they’re trying to change our culture’ and so they declared war on all the white guys and went after the white guys and that was King Philip’s War,” Barton says. “It was really trying to be civilized on one side and end torture and the Indians were threatened by the ending of torture and so we had to go in and we had to destroy Indian tribes all over until they said “oh, got the point, you’re doing to us what we’re doing to them, okay, we’ll sign a treaty.”

One of the many things Barton leaves out is what really started King Philip’s War, which was European encroachment on Wampanoag land. Read more about King Philip’s War here.

Barton didn’t stop there, though. He even had a commercial break to consider what he had said and he still came back feeling the need to explain why American soldiers wiped out all the buffalo in the plains in the 1800s. In his view, it was a way to cut off the Indians supply and therefore end the war and save lives.

“People complained about the fact that the American military and buffalo hunters went out and wiped out all the buffalo in the western plains. Doing that was what brought the Indians to their knees,” Barton says. “That’s what brought those wars to an end, that’s what brought the Indians to their knees and ended all the western conflict.”

Barton, of course, fails to mention anything as to why the wars started, which again is at its most basic due to westward expansion.

This guy is nuts. There is no "just war" - just people fighting people to get their land, resources, etc. - also for power and because people hate each other. Jesus said to love one another. What is this guy going to say to the Christian Indians? - and there are Christian American Indians. At the foot of the cross of Jesus there is no "White" and "Indian" - only people who are in desperate need of forgiveness.

"Evangelist" my arse. He might know something about religion but nothing about history. King Philip was the first in a line of native american patriots who could see the big picture, later followed by Tecumseh of the Shawnees, Quannah Parker of the Qwadhi Commanches, Cochise and Goyathlay of the Apaches, Chief Joseph of the Lapwai, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse of the Lakota. These are just a few. Denis Banks, the late Russell Means continue the struggle. Indian people will rise again just as we Irish gained partial Independance from the British after 700 years of struggle. The blueprint for the Indian reservation system goes back to the early 17th century, when Oliver Cromwell banished the Gaelic Irish to the barren lands of Connemara in the West of Ireland, where it was said at the time there was "no soil to till the ground, water to drown a man, or trees to hang a man". Today only the people on the outlying Islands and small areas of the west speak Irish as their 1st language.
About 30 to 40 years ago there was an expression which is never used today. If you were out drinking, somebody might say to you "It's your round Chief", meaning it is your turn to buy the drinks. I never knew what it meant until the other day. Apparantly, during the 2nd world war, Indians fighting in the US army were often affectionally called "Chief" by their fellow soldiers.
The expression became popular in the post war period.

Ok, so what I take from this...pray to our God, or we're going to kill you, your wife...mother...kids and elders. Makes sense... to them anyway. As a Non Native American, I'm appalled at the way people of the "cloth" are willing to use God as a reason to commit genocide. Didn't believe in torture? Did this "gentleman" forget the French and Spanish Inquisition? Did he also forget Wounded Knee, Sand Creek, Powder River. Or was the killing of the Elders, women and children also part of the plan?
I guess in short, this person just likes to hear the sound of his own voice, since he really isn't showing any common sense.

The dufus says King Philip's War was to stamp out torture. And now the OB1 Administration uses it as a form of intelligence-gathering that anyone who has "been there, done that" will tell you "simply doesn't work!" White Anglo-Saxon Protestant America should have stuck by its principles -- if it EVER had them.

At least you people have comments about the goofey person making stupid statements,I'm still wrestling in my mind how tha hell did some one in a big boat discover american when INDIANS were already here.DUH!! I went to TEXAS this weekend and discovered SIX FLAGS see how that sounds.

I'm quite familiar with David Barton's teachings over the past 30 years. He uses what he claims is "history" as Republican propaganda: he's been co-chair of that party in Texas at least 8 years, and was the 2004 Bush' campaign's "liaison to social conservatives" (i.e., official deceiver of Christians).
More damning than being a professional political operative posing as a historian, Barton poses as a Christian. Jesus said He "IS the truth," and scripture affirms that "no lie is of the truth." Clearly no liar has any part in Christ: and Barton is a professional liar.
More dam

The teaching of Christ say, the last shall be first in the Kingdom of God! The first shall be last. We are Gods people too and we have been always treated last by the Europeans that were drove out of their country by their greedy leaders. So God loves his Native American people just as much as he loves his other peoples of the world. It is great to know we are going to be first in his Kingdom, just as the Native Americans were first people of North America, only to be treated last by the Piligrims that came here for a better world.

Mr. Barton, aren't Christians supposed to emulate Jesus? How many people did Jesus kill, David? Also I do not recall when Jesus went and slaughtered all of the game in Israel, when did he do that?
Are you really a Christian? Your rhetoric is way more Repugnican than Christian.